Theology

One characteristic of the Book of Common Prayer, and of liturgical prose generally, is repetition, often repetition with variation. Repetition has many purposes. It is an aid to memory. It makes our worship adhere more closely to biblical patterns, for the Scriptures are shot through with repetition with variation.1Samuel L. Bray and John F. Hobbins, Genesis…

I have long considered myself something of a liturgy nerd. I remember as a young child comparing various sections of the Episcopal 1979 Prayer Book and wondering why we always prayed the Nicene Creed on Sunday and never the Apostles’ Creed. When I was returning to the Anglican tradition as an adult, a significant part…

One of the tendencies in any theological tradition is to develop a canon in canonem (“canon within a canon”). The Anabaptists have the Sermon on the Mount, or so they claim. The Reformed supposedly have Romans. Catholics will always (falsely) accuse Protestants of reading Paul at the expense of James and Protestants will always (falsely)…

One of the crown jewels of the Book of Common Prayer is the General Confession in Morning and Evening Prayer. In theological terms, it offers a clear-eyed depiction of what Christians believe is the human condition: we are prone to curve inward away from God, we need his forgiveness. In literary terms, it is a…

In part 1 of this article, we saw a brief history of the Matthew Bible, first published in 1537. It was the work of three Englishmen living in Antwerp: William Tyndale, who translated the New Testament and the first half of the Old from the Hebrew and Greek; Myles Coverdale, who translated the other Scriptures…

When the sixteenth century dawned in England, there were laws prohibiting the translation of the Bible into English. It was illegal to even own or to read English Scriptures.1In 1401, under King Henry IV, parliament passed a statute called De haeretico comburendo, or On the burning of heretics, targeting Wycliffe’s followers, the Lollards. Then in 1408…

The Venite, Psalm 95 (Psalm 94 in the Vulgate), has been part of daily prayer in the Western Church for at least fifteen centuries. It is prescribed for Matins in the Rule of St. Benedict. It was likely already in regular use, as can be seen from the Western Church’s retention of a Latin text…

The Word of God and the Words of Man: Books II and III of Hooker’s Laws: a Modernization. By Richard Hooker. Edited/translated by Bradford Littlejohn, Brian Marr, Bradley Belschner, and Sean Duncan. Moscow, ID: The Davenant Institute, 2018. 142pp. $11.95 (paper). Due to the 500th anniversary of the Protestant Reformation in 2017, I have heard…

THE time of Lent now approaching, which has been anciently and very Christianly set apart, for penitential humiliation of Soul and Body, for Fasting and Weeping and Praying, all which you know are very frequently inculcated in Holy Scripture, as the most effectual means we can use, to avert those Judgments our sins have deserv’d;…